Fishes and Fisheries of Our North 
Atlantic Seaboard 
By JOHN OLIVER LA GORGE 
Vice President of the Plational Geographic Society 
T he story of the fishes and fisheries 
of the North Atlantic seaboard of 
the United States is one that has 
the fascination of a romance. 
Whether we consider the biology of the 
species which are the prizes of the fishing 
fleets, the methods of reaping this harvest 
of the seas, or the stern battle against the 
depletion of the supply, there are stirring 
chapters at every turn. 
The world annually levies a tribute 
upon the seven seas of half a billion dol¬ 
lars’ worth of fish, of which Europe col¬ 
lects approximately half, the United 
States nearly a third, and the remainder 
of mankind the other sixth. 
In terms of weight, the portion col¬ 
lected by the United States amounts to 
2,600,000,000 pounds, including shellfish. 
Three-fourths of this annual harvest 
reaches the markets in fresh condition; 
the remainder goes to the consumer as 
canned, salted, and smoked fish. 
The North Atlantic fisheries of the 
American seaboard reach from the New¬ 
foundland Banks to the Delaware River, 
and represent the major sea fisheries of 
the Atlantic coast, producing some seven 
hundred million pounds of sea food an¬ 
nually. 
Considering the fisheries of the United 
States in these waters, one finds upward 
of fifty different kinds of fish and shell¬ 
fish called for by fish-eating citizens, help¬ 
ing to swell the total annual catch. Eigh¬ 
teen kinds have more than two million 
pounds each to their credit in the national 
larder. 
Biologically, perhaps the most interest¬ 
ing of all the species that figure in the 
returns are the Flatfish—Flounders and 
Halibuts—with their changing forms and 
migrating eyes. By what strange quirk 
of Nature the left eyes of species inhab¬ 
iting cold water usually migrate to the 
right side of their heads, while the right 
eyes of most species inhabiting warm 
water journey over to the left, no scien¬ 
tist will venture a guess (see Color Plate, 
page 41). 
When they are hatched, all Flatfish are 
of orthodox symmetrical shape, with con¬ 
ventionally placed mouths and eyes, but 
after they swim around in ordinary fashion 
for a little while, they exhibit a tendency 
to turn to the one side or the other. 
Immediately after this peculiar tend¬ 
ency begins to develop, the eye on the 
lower side seems to acquire a wanderlust. 
Stephen R. Williams, who studied this 
change, says that the optic nerves are so 
placed in the youngling as to provide for 
the migration. 
THE ORIGIN OF FLATFISH 
The first sign of the transformation is a 
rapid change in the cartilage bar lying in 
the path of the eye that is to migrate. 
Then comes an increase of the distance 
between the eye and the brain, caused by 
the growth of facial cartilages. In the 
Winter Flounder, three-fourths of the 
120-degree migration takes place in three 
days. What if that should become a 
human habit! 
The extent of the eye migration and of 
the flatness of the species is closely related 
to its habits. The Sole and the shore 
Flounder, which keep close to the bottom, 
are more twisted than the Halibut, the 
Sand Dab, and the Summer Flounder, 
which are more given to free swimming. 
How this deviation from the conven¬ 
tional bilateral shape arose is a mystery. 
